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New Room to Manoeuvre: An Indian Approach to Climate Change

Descrizione

Samir Saran’s essays in this joint publication from Global Policy and the Observer Researh Foundation illuminate the way forward for climate financing, technology transfer and green growth, providing an invaluable read to politicians, researchers and students of India’s climate diplomacy.

Despite economic, social and scientific realities, the global narrative on climate change has long been trapped in a Manichean world, in which India has often been portrayed as a deal breaker or a standout. This compilation of articles breaks the mould, situating India’s role in the global political and economic realities of our time. India, as he succinctly argues, is indeed the exception in the arc of global development: The environmental imperative to fight climate change requires India to develop an unprecedented and untested model of industrialisation. And while doing so, we may note that India has to successfully meet its twin imperatives of poverty eradication and equitable growth. That policymakers, not only in India but globally, too, should acknowledge, accept and adapt to this reality is the key implication of what Samir suggests. He deconstructs this challenge into one which responds to India’s lifeline needs and the other, which attends to the lifestyle aspirations of its people.

Anteprima del libro

New Room to Manoeuvre - Global Policy

Published by Global Policy Journal and Observer Research Foundation at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Global Policy Journal jointly owned by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd (Company no. 641132), whose registered office and principal place of business is at The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK and The University of Durham (established under Royal Charter with Company Number RC000650) whose registered address is The Palatine Centre, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LE (together the Owners). Wiley-Blackwell is a trading name of John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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ENDORSEMENT

Despite economic, social and scientific realities, the global narrative on climate change has long been trapped in a Manichean world, in which India has often been portrayed as a deal breaker or a standout. Samir Saran’s compilation of articles breaks the mould, situating India’s role in the global political and economic realities of our time. India, as he succinctly argues, is indeed the exception in the arc of global development: The environmental imperative to fight climate change requires India to develop an unprecedented and untested model of industrialisation. And while doing so, we may note that India has to successfully meet its twin imperatives of poverty eradication and equitable growth. That policymakers, not only in India but globally, too, should acknowledge, accept and adapt to this reality is the key implication of what Samir suggests. He deconstructs this challenge into one which responds to India’s lifeline needs and the other, which attends to the lifestyle aspirations of its people. The essays in this volume illuminate the way forward for climate financing, technology transfer and green growth, making it an invaluable read to politicians, researchers and students of India’s climate diplomacy. Samir backs his argument with rigorous research and methodical analysis of numbers and facts – filling a gaping void in the extant scholarship on climate policy. As a result, this collection is a force to reckon with, the sharpness of its argument matched only by the lucidity of the prose.

FOREWORD

If there is a subject that captures global attention today in the quest to transform the future of the planet, it is the widespread desire to combat climate change. Today, the United Nations’ endeavours to help develop a common response to this seemingly intractable problem have come into sharp focus with the looming Paris Conference (COP 21) scheduled for December 2015.

World leaders of various hues have weighed in on the debate. From the Pope, who invoked religion and called on humanity to be protectors of God's plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment, to President Obama, who is seeking to bypass the political resistance of the US Congress to reach a deal in Paris, no global figure has felt immune from the ambition to pronounce his commitment to a solution. In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invoked the concept of ‘climate justice’ and asked for a global agreement that favours developing countries. Chinese President Xi Jinping is not far behind in vowing to seize the moment in Paris. Each of these leaders is seeking an agreement that could help catalyse climate policies that would be seen as truly transformational. It is clear that the climate change challenge, and the response to it, will continue to remain an enduring topic for debate and international co-operation in this century and beyond.

The climate change challenge has two significant components for a country like India. The first is the shrinking carbon space. Global atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs), including carbon dioxide, have risen significantly in the past century. Alarmingly, historical measurements show that never in the last 800,000 years have the current global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide been exceeded. Carbon dioxide levels in particular have risen steadily, from an annual average of 280 ppm in the late 1770s, to over 400 ppm in March 2015. With almost all of this increase the result of human activity, countries can no longer afford to emit greenhouse gases as they did in previous decades, and still hope to meet the target of preventing global temperatures from rising more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2050.

The second major aspect to the challenge is the shrinking space for development as a consequence of this limited carbon space. Developing countries are the most vulnerable to climate change: in a study published in 2009, the World Bank estimated the cost of climate change to Africa will be 4% of GDP and to India, 5%. Through most of the 20th century, the industrialization of developed countries was predicated on fossil fuels, which contributed significantly to the rise in GHG levels. It is apparent, however, that with growing environmental consciousness, industrialization along 20th century lines can no longer be the development model for the post-2015 world. This realization has led to a growing emphasis on renewable energy, which so far remains considerably more expensive than fossil fuel energy. Thus developing countries today not only have